We have talked about the basic principles, the basic prerequisites
in which Western thought moves. Now we shall examine the existential
repercussions of the Filioque. The mainly existential repercussions
will of course become apparent when we examine ecclesiology.
We shall now begin with a few general observations, which have to do
with anthropology more than ecclesiology directly.

To comprehend the
repercussions that the Filioque will have on human existence (which
may sound strange, how it is possible for consequences to reach that
far), we need to remember the basic principles upon which the
Filioque rests. When we say basic principles, we mean the
principles that were used in order to theologically support the
Filioque, especially with the help of (or rather, with the initial
source being) Augustine's thought and theology.

The
first basic principle is what we could call the priority of
the Essence and not the Person (hypostasis). We mentioned in the previous lesson just
how important this was, in order for the Filioque to be supported,
because without it, we would be looking at a "bi-theism" (dual divinity).
That Western theology has preserved monotheism despite having the
Filioque is clearly attributed to the fact that it has not ascribed
an ontological precedence to the Person, otherwise there would
definitely have been a case of dual divinity, because if the sources
- the ontological principals - of the Holy Spirit are two: the
Father AND the Son (Who are Persons), then we would definitely have two
Gods. This was one of the chief arguments of Photius and the
other post-Medieval Easterners against the Filioque, but the
Westerners -as we said- have bypassed this, inasmuch as they have no
need to relate the one God to the Father; instead, they relate Him
to the Essence.

If the
Son loved, it would be as though He is depriving the Holy Spirit
of His hypostatic characteristic (which is love).
Characteristics, therefore, are the things that supposedly determine the
Persons definitely. In the East, in Patristic theology, this view is
unacceptable. As we said, the names "Father", "Son" and "Holy
Spirit" are not the names that denote an energy. They are not names for
the Essence of course - but neither are they for an energy. And all those
attributes of knowledge, omniscience, love - all those things - are
common attributes of all three Persons; they are energies of all three
Persons. Therefore, even though they may all have the Father
as their source - as every energy has the Father as its source, and
He is the cause of everything - nevertheless these energies do not
identify with the Father. The only hypostatic attributes that each
Person (hypostasis) has, are: unbegottenness and causality for the Father,
begottenness and cause for the Son and Logos, and procession for the
Holy Spirit. In the East, the "problem" of hypostatic status
is projected through the cause. For Western theology, the
Persons are not the decisive basis for these hypostatic attributes -
which are all ontological attributes on the one
side, in the East and pertaining to relationships - but rather, are
attributes of psychology; and what is more important, is that we
shall see that they are also axiological. And it is
precisely this axiological element that is the next element, which,
in regard to that second principle (that the Person (hypostasis) is determined by
its attributes) can be confined to the evaluation of those two
attributes, such as knowledge (for the Son) and love (for the
Spirit). These two are evaluated, and precedence is given to
knowledge.

Weshall therefore
examine those principles upon which the Filioque is based, the
repercussions that they have on human existence, and what their
existential significance is. And first of all, the precedence of
the Essence and not the Person: This implies a deprivation of
freedom in existence, an acceptance of necessity within existence,
because if the Essence is the cause of God's existence (and not the
Father), then the Persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
(Who are free Beings as Persons) will come second and as such would
be subject to the necessity of nature. Existentially, this is
interpreted as exactly the same kind of state that our experience as
created beings daily confirms, in a tragic manner, because it is
precisely we -as created beings- who are subject to the necessity of
essence. And this is apparent, firstly from the fact that in
us, it is the essence that is precedent - it is human nature that
precedes the separate individuals, the persons.... John, George, Costas.... because when they come into existence, they find human
nature already there, so consequently they, as persons, are not the
causes of their essence, their existence. And of course it becomes
obvious from the manner of reproduction, the birth of people, that
this takes place by means of existing natural laws from which no man
can escape.

Thus,with regard
to birth, with regard to the emergence of man, necessity does exist,
because the essence is precedent. The same applies, with regard to
necessity, in man's ending, death. There again, it is the
essence, it is nature that determines the outcome of man's
existence. The fact that we die is already predetermined from
the moment of our birth; it is not as though it is an event that
appears suddenly, later on in our life. Death does not come at a
certain point in our life; it is present from the day we are born.
It is inherent, from the moment of our birth, precisely because the
laws of nature - the rules of the game that nature has imposed -
also include death. Immortal beings are not born in this
manner. Consequently, the entire issue with existence is the problem
of the person's disengagement from the laws of nature. Because
I do not want my beginning to be imposed on me by someone, nor do I
wish my ending to be imposed on me by someone, by a law of nature,
by a certain nature. If I am immortal by nature, and am
immortal out of necessity, then that would be a very fundamental
challenge to my freedom. It may be, that I do not wish to be
immortal; however, if nature is precedent, then existence itself is
predetermined by nature.

Thus, ifwe were to
pose the question: "Why is God immortal?" one reply could be:
"because He is immortal by nature - because nature determines God's
immortality". That would mean we are looking at a compulsory
immortality of God, and its corresponding item would be a compulsory
immortality of our own. One could ask why that would be
problematic, existentially speaking. Of course not everyone
has existential concerns, and in fact in this form - of freedom.
And there indeed are those who aren't preoccupied with it. Naturally
everyone is preoccupied with the matter of death. However, there are
also people who aren't concerned with the matter of death; in fact
those who have received a strong dose of the Christian faith
are those who can become entirely indifferent. People die, and they
are not in the least concerned; thus, that ultimate enemy that
bothers Paul, that preoccupies all of the Holy Bible, and whose
vanquishing was the Resurrection of Christ, is made to look as
though it is of no significance. But death is precisely the
thing that preoccupies man, because of his non-acceptance of nature.
If he does accept nature, he does not worry about death. He
also does not worry about his own existence - the beginning of his
existence... he is in the state of an animal. An animal is not
preoccupied in this manner; it adapts to the laws of nature. The
difference with man is that he is existentially preoccupied with
these matters and refuses to accept death, however he also refuses compulsory
existence when he reaches the point of freely choosing between
living or not living. These are the characteristics of man.
He cannot avoid being preoccupied existentially, if he wants to be a
human and does not want to be an animal. Thus, if it is an
existential problem if I am to exist or not exist freely, then it is
an existential problem if the Essence does or does not precede the
Person. We therefore have serious repercussions here, in the
event of a theological vindication of the Filioque.

Now let usgo to
the second characteristic - to the attributes, and in fact the
psychological ones. If the identity of a Person
(hypostasis) is dependent
on the psychological, the natural attributes, then, in the event
that those attributes (or, we could say - the abilities of the
individual) are absent, then we must also have an absence of the Person;
in other words, the Person (hypostasis) collapses and also disappears. If
my par excellence hypostatic attribute is to be logical, to have
reasoning and knowledge, and supposing that for whatever reason my
reasoning, my logicality and my knowledge do not function, do not
exist any more, then I will also be losing my personal identity.
The same applies reversely - which is equally interesting nowadays,
following Darwin's theory (which we must admit has basically become
accepted, otherwise we cut ourselves off from biology and
biologists), this truth is common. Thus, if -according to Darwin's
theory- logicality also exists in animals, then man loses, because
if man is judged on the basis of logic and his cognitive ability, he
loses his characteristic of a Person. If my characteristic as
a Person (hypostasis) were dependent on my logicality, then when I lose my
logicality, I lose my Person (hypostasis) also. This is of tremendous importance
in everyday existence - in man's existence.

Intenselydiscussed
nowadays, is at which point in time a human becomes a person, and
at which point he is
a person. Westerners maintain that an individual becomes
a person, when he acquires a conscience. The more his conscience
develops, the more the Person (hypostasis) develops. This definitely
creates huge problems, because in this way, we risk seeing as less
persons - or even not at all as persons - those individuals who are
mentally challenged and incapable of the more subtle and profound and
lofty processes of the conscience. Consequently, in our existence,
an elitism is thus created and the Person (hypostasis) identifies with his
abilities - and not with what he is, regardless of his
abilities and in spite of them. Take for example the
hypostatic element of the Holy Spirit which (according to the
Westerners) is love: If love is that which renders someone a
person, then one who hates cannot be a person. And yet, Satan
- the one who par excellence hates - is a person, because he is
free. Therefore, it is other things that characterize and make
the Person (hypostasis) into a person, not these attributes. From the
moment that we identify the Person (hypostasis) by those attributes, then we
indeed create problems for existence - and especially the problem
(again) of freedom, because the Person (hypostasis) is thus determined
definitely, by objective values. Thus, the priority of the
Essence on the one hand and this axiological stance on the other,
both lead very clearly to an evaluation by the theoreticians - the
classical ones - of the Filioque in the West, which has formidable
repercussions on our existence.

Evaluatingbetween
knowledge and love.
The placing of knowledge before love is one of the basic excuses
that Augustine and Thomas Aquinas give for the Filioque. If the Son
is knowledge and the Spirit is love, then the Spirit must originate
from the Son also (Latin, Filioque), because knowledge precedes love. This is a
basic postulate which we observe in Augustine and is repeated
in Thomas Aquinas.

But this precedence of knowledge versus love creates
huge existential problems. First of all, we cannot ensure that
everyone is capable of knowledge, because we subsequently risk
degrading them as persons if they do not possess knowledge, and
secondly, if knowledge precedes love, then again the objective
reality that knowledge will perceive through the intellect will
determine and restrict the freedom of love - in other words,
it will be "I love because I know". That was the basic position of the
ancient Hellenes: We love, because we recognize what is
benevolent and good. Socrates also believed that if all people
acquired the knowledge of good, then no-one would be bad in this world.
To know does not signify that your freedom to do or not do something
is curtailed. Freedom, precisely, is about will and love; to love or
to hate someone is not subject to the objective data of knowledge,
because then we would be loving only those who are good and that
would definitely be one of the consequences, i.e., the reason
we love would now become the necessity that makes us love.

If you
read Sykoutris' Introduction on Plato's Republic, you will notice
that he provides an excellent analysis - he compares the Platonic
notion of love -"eros"- to the Christian one and he shows that,
although for the ancient Hellene, in order to love there must be a
reason, one cannot (supposedly) love sincerely and properly if it is
only done without any reason, nor can it be justified. As he
states therein, if Satan were to ask God why He loves
mankind, it would put Him in a tight spot to answer. And that is
precisely where God's love for sinners is found. How is that
possible? An ancient Hellene would never love a sinner, because a
sinner is by definition abhorrent. An evil Person (hypostasis) is repulsive, and
he therefore lacks an objective sense of knowledge. Objective
knowledge takes precedence there: you know that a Person
(hypostasis) is
good, you know that he is "advanced" in knowledge, you
know of his virtues, you know all these things and that
is why you come to love him. And when they ask you WHY you love that
person, you have an answer ready, because that reason is already
there, and because that reason implies an objective knowledge. But
when you love WITHOUT a reason, then knowledge does not precede love
- love precedes knowledge... Knowledge is cast out.

Now, the
question is whether in human existence it is worth paying attention
to these things and preserve them, or not. To be concerned about
them or not be concerned, The entire Gospel - the essence of
the Christian Faith - hinges on these things. Well, the Gospel
actually liberates us precisely from that necessity. And if we read
it in that spirit, we will see that it is nothing more than a
proclamation of our liberation from necessity and from nature
(because of the transcendence of death), but also from knowledge -
in the sense of the logic that gives knowledge priority and
compels love to be pursuant to it. The Filioque cannot be
justified philosophically and theologically, if we pull the rug from
under it with all the things we said. It will collapse. That is why
I place so much importance on the existential repercussions and
inevitably on theology, and I believe that both are intertwined and
both influence each other.

If someone were to ask me what had precedence in Western theology -
an erroneous theology or an erroneous existential placement - it
will be difficult for me to answer... and I might perhaps be
inclined to reply that it was the latter.

QUESTIONS

Q: We
mentioned earlier that love does not constitute knowledge...

A: Knowledge as
a prerequisite, yes. Love can contain knowledge and it can
lead to knowledge, but knowledge is not a prerequisite for love.
Love does not function within the necessity of knowledge.

Q:But doesn't the relationship between two persons
demand knowledge, in order for them to proceed to love?

Á: No. That is exactly the point that we are stressing:
that knowledge does NOT lead to love. When a mother loves her child,
what does she "know" about the child? When a child loves its
mother, what does it "know" about its mother? Of course these are
natural loves, but that is not important. What is important, is that
this knowledge - the knowledge that is developed by the mind - first
of all is not necessary and secondly, it is dangerous if regarded as
a prerequisite, because it confines love, ie., to love or to not
love a Person (hypostasis) based on his characteristics. There is of course
the perception that "the more two persons get to know each other,
the more they love each other". These, in my opinion, are
foolish things. Because if this principle applied, then absolutely
no marriage could break up and no divorces could exist, inasmuch as
the progress of years would mean that couples would know each other
more and more and they would necessarily have to love each other
even more. These things aren't even found within natural law -
much more so within the realm of freedom (which freedom must have
the potential to love, in defiance of knowledge), where, by
"knowing" the other, you might discover that he is evil. What would
happen with love in such a case? If love continues or increases in
defiance of this knowledge, then that knowledge will not have led to
love; obviously love will have ignored that knowledge.

Q:
Exactly, but isn't knowledge an element that will hinder us from
loving?

Á:
Yes, if it becomes a condition for loving, it will surely
hinder us from loving. That is to say, if it actually becomes a
condition - that loving depends on knowledge - then knowledge
definitely has been given precedence. But it may not
necessarily constitute a condition per se, in which case, it doesn't
hurt. But in the Filioque, knowledge definitely constitutes
a prerequisite for loving God. These things may have
seemed far-fetched, but if one stops to think what would have become
of the Filioque if we were to remove those principles, then it would
become obvious that it isn't that far-fetched.

Q:What we
have said so far, pertains to "horizontal" communication - that is,
in the personal relations between people - and not to "vertical"
communication. Can we say that the exact same things apply in
vertical communication - the love of God?

Á: We certainly can.

Q:The
Fathers have spoken somewhere about "two faiths and two knowledges".
Does that mean there are two kinds of faith? And two kinds of
knowledge? The first is the faith in something that you know
nothing about. Then comes the faith where you learn something
naturally, through nature around you etc.. Later on comes the
faith by which you have acquired full knowledge of that thing, and
finally, the knowledge of God and of man. I think Maximus
somewhere has given a quartet of correlations... By following up on
that line of thought: in the case of a theumen (a "deified" person),
who has delved far into a profound spirituality, can we say that the
experience which he has undergone is the outcome of his knowledge or
his love? In other words, he has a knowledge of God and therefore
loves Him - or does he love God because he has attained
knowledge of Him?

Á: No. It
is because he loves God that he has come to know Him. The
principle that underlies the entire course of ascesis and theosis
(deification) - which we should not confine to this form alone - is,
for Eastern monasticism, the forsaking of our own will and our
obedience to God's commandments. And that is where knowledge takes a
beating; because, if you examine matters with logic and with
knowledge, you will never be able to give a reason for that kind of
obedience - and especially to God's law, which, for all ascetics is
the greatest of irrationalities one could say - as it totally
transcends human powers. That is why so many pose the question -
even nowadays - people who want to put knowledge first and ask for
example "Why do you fast?" What can you say to them?
There are of course apologetics that pertain to fasting; hence
someone might reply that it is good for his health, another might
say he strives to renounce the flesh and cultivate the spirit,
etc... All of these reasons that are given - these examples of
knowledge - are totally irrelevant to the true explanation behind
fasting. I have used fasting as an example, because everything
is a form of fasting; everything about ascesis defies every form of
logic when accepting God's law, Whose law asks irrational things of
you. When you are told to "turn the other cheek when slapped
on the one...", what kind of logic supports that demand? And
certainly no ancient Hellene could ever accept such a thing.
Knowledge says that if I turn the other cheek, the offender might
kill me. But here, we are told "No, go ahead, and jump into
God's mercy". Show trust, in defiance of every objective
knowledge: that yes, you might even be killed, you might even reach
the point of the Cross as Christ had, but there is always the
Resurrection. And that is the most irrational thing of all.

Q:But
God's condescension towards man is always precedent. In other words,
doesn't God descend first? Doesn't He come first, with some kind of
an Energy?

Á: Of
course, in order for you to reach the point of proceeding to that
irrational love, it is absolutely certain that God and the Holy
Spirit will cultivate it. But that doesn't negate your freedom - you
are still free to say yes or no. God helps, the Holy Spirit
collaborates, but you are not deprived of your freedom. They do not
make you forcibly say "yes" to an Elder, or say "yes" to God's law,
or say "yes" to death, "yes" to sin"... That is your free choice.
Man's self-government is by no means abolished by God.

Q:Older
apologetes used to say (and this is what seems strange to me) that
"no-one has lost his senses, so that although they can see the
light, they still pluck out their eyes". The way the matter is
being placed now, we could say that we could pluck out our eyes, if
we wanted to...

Á: Of
course we can! There is no greater truth than that. For
example, Socrates would never have accepted that it could be
possible for one who knew the value of light to pluck out his
eyes. And this kind of priority to knowledge -according to their
perception- prevailed for entire centuries. The power of
freedom was ignored. It is rooted within the Bible, but in our own
time, if one were to notice how much it was exalted - how much it
had been brought to the fore (for example by Dostoevsky) - it would
become obvious that man's freedom is far greater than every kind of
necessity that originates from knowledge and reasoning; and that man
in fact can do - and in fact does - the most irrational things.
And that, precisely, is the majesty of man... Don't let it seem
strange to you, because in essence, man is saying "no" to his
existence (and thus also introducing "death"); it is by means of
that very freedom that he also says "yes" to God, and God has no
intention of depriving him of it.

Q:
Apart from knowledge being the cause for someone to love (which is
something that we reject), I would now like to add the option of
objective knowledge" that is, its purpose or the quid pro quo it may
aspire to. In other words, I love someone, not only because I know
them, but also because I anticipate receiving something that they
can offer; I love them, because there actually is a purpose to this
activity - this action of mine.

Á: To be
precise, it does not exist, because knowledge has two aspects: the
causal and the teleological aspect. The teleological aspect however
is causal, because its aspiration becomes the cause for which
something takes place. Thus, if we say that by pushing this table
here, a result will ensue; but this is a knowledge, not only with
regard to the pushing but also to the result thereof; and it is on
the basis of this knowledge (of the result) that I judge and place
myself respectively, therefore the cause can also be teleological.